Beyond the Scarlet Robe
by Sou7h
Summary: Oneshot. A look at Scarlet Robe's life and her relationship with Brom because all they got was one cutscene...


**Author's Note:** The longest oneshot I have ever written and it feels good to be done. It baffles me that I've only seen one Scarlet/Brom fic, and that was only for the first chapter so I decided to write one of my own. Hope you enjoy =).

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fable. So hard to believe, right?

* * *

Scarlet Robe brought her axe down on the last balvarine, severing its head in a single, clean blow. The decapitated corpse itself was far from clean; blood splattered on her robes and flecked her face, where it mixed with her sweat.

As the crowd roared around her, she discovered that not only could sound be heard, it could be felt as well. Felt in the soles of her feet and the hum in her ribcage.

She revelled in the rush of adrenaline as life was snuffed out at her feet. She revelled in the thrill of battle. Bloodlust was not a feeling befitting one of Albion's heroes, but that didn't matter here. Here, there were no heroes; that was both the beauty and the ugliness of the Arena: it drew out the most basic, most feral instincts of human beings until they were no less beasts than the ones they paid to see killed. Riots in the stands were not uncommon. Scarlet had heard stories of fighters who had gone mad and killed and killed, far beyond the point where they should have rested – or even died.

She loved this place.

A bugle sounded, signalling the end of the round, followed by the announcer's voice. "Amazing! Scarlet Robe dispatches yet another group of balvarines! But will she put everything on the line for another ten _thousand_ gold?"

She had won enough gold by now to buy her own mansion. But it had never been about the money. The hero signalled that she wanted to advance to the next round and the crowd roared its approval.

Her muscles ached and she could feel more than one cut bleeding freely, but she made no move to heal. Every seasoned warrior knew to keep their potions until the last possible second to maximize their time in the ring. It was risky, playing games with death, but that was what the Arena was all about.

The next round had more White Balvarines than Scarlet had ever faced before. She grinned at the challenge and it snarled ferociously back at her.

From the corner of her eye, a black balvarine lunged forward and she spun deftly to meet the blow. Its razor claws drew sparks as they met the metal of her axe. The weight of the beast – almost twice as much as hers – forced her heels deep into the bloody sand. With a speed and grace uncommon of an axe-bearer, she moved under the reach of its long arms and brought her weapon across its midriff.

The other balvarines backed off a step and circled her warily. They had underestimated her and seen what that mistake would cost them.

The fight wasn't easy. Even using her superior speed and agility to counteract their brute strength, their numbers and her own exhaustion wore her thin. She still refused to heal. _One more, just after you kill one more_, she kept telling herself. At last, only one was left standing. It roared at her defiantly.

Scarlet settled into her ready stance. Before her eyes, the beast seemed to split into two different balvarines, then merge back into one. She blinked and the vision disappeared. _Strange_. And had she always felt so light-headed?

Shaking the feeling off, she advanced slowly. It mirrored her exactly. She raised her axe and then swung it down, aiming for its chest. The balvarine deflected the blow with one of its claws and took a swipe at her – which she barely dodged – before retreating a few steps back.

It knew this battle was about survival now. It knew she was injured. And it knew she was slowly but surely dying.

She had to finish this quickly.

They exchanged strikes, each trying to find a way past the other's defences. Scarlet began to feel frustrated, impatient and just a little bit desperate. This was taking too long.

It struck again and she parried, her counterattack unsuccessful. As she backed away from another vicious swipe, her heel touched the Arena wall. With a thrill of fear, she realized that her enemy had been slowly hemming her in, herding her like a lamb to its slaughter. On one side was one of the many traps in the sandpit: a maelstrom of sharp, spinning blades. And blocking all her other escape routes were cut off by the long reach of the Balvarine's arms.

With the desperation of a cornered animal, she decided to take a risk: end her enemy or have it end her. She used all of her remaining strength to swing her axe in a vicious arc horizontally from left to right. The balvarine could only manage to deflect the attack, leaving its side exposed.

Using her momentum to her advantage, she spun herself around in a circle and swung again, this time sinking her axe deep between its ribs.

The beast howled in agony. As it fell, it dealt her a death blow: one of its paws sliced open her robes and deep in her skin; but more importantly, it sent all her health potions flying. They spun in slow motion, spinning end over end before shattering against the wall of the Arena.

The crowd's joyous screams and stomps drowned out her own horrified whisper. "_No_."

Frantic, she tried to soak up as much of the precious liquid as she was able. But it was too late: it was already seeping into porous stone and dusty sand, lost forever. Her life was seeping away.

Scarlet Robe promptly dragged herself straight to the cells. Albion's citizens booed as she left, but she no longer cared. She needed healing and a rest that was long overdue. Stupid. She should've healed when she had the chance. Instead, she had gambled too much and gone too far. And now she was going to pay with her life.

"Give me a healing potion," she said hoarsely to the shopkeeper in the Arena anteroom.

"Certainly. That will be sixty-eight gold."

She felt for her pocket and instead touched ripped cloth. Imagining her gold sparkling among the sand of the ring outside, she cursed herself.

"I don't have any gold, I dropped it in the ring," she explained briefly. "If you'd just give it to me now and I can go back out there and get it for you."

"No gold, no potion."

"What?" She demanded angrily. "_What?_" She was shouting now. The other Arena fighters turned to stare at her. "I'm dying! Just heal me and I'll get your stinking gold!"

"I can't. No gold, no potion. It's only business."

"I'll die because of you! Is that _good business_? Can you live with that on your conscience?"

The shopkeeper only stared at her impassively.

Scarlet supposed she should've expected as much. How many poor souls had gone through the exact same thing while she watched derisively from the corner? It had been easy to blame it on their stupidity. It had been easy to feel so detached when she wasn't the one in trouble. But she had lost too much blood to realize that now.

"Bastard!" She swept her arms across his display, knocking all his items to the floor. A few of them broke.

"Madam, I must ask you to –"

"Screw you!" She turned to the rest of the room. "Can anyone spare a potion? Anyone?"

But if the shopkeeper's heart was cold, the Arena fighters had no heart at all. In the back of their minds, they were all thinking what Scarlet herself had thought more than once: _better you than me_.

She was only answered by her own breathing, which grew more and more laboured by the second. "Damn you all!"

The guards advanced on her, probably half for everyone's safety and half for the damaged goods. She waved them off and exited the Arena alone, limping.

Outside, it was raining as it always was in Witchwood. She supposed it was quite depressing - especially on the day of what would be her death. But a Hero never expected death to be peaceful. And in the end, she supposed the weather didn't matter anyway.

Many of her admirers congratulated her as she stumbled blindly down the path, but their voices were muted and their words hollow.

She didn't know where she was going, only that she ended up wandering deeper and deeper into the woods. She would rot amongst the trees. The animals would pick her corpse clean. Her body would be desecrated and forgotten. She would die like a true adventurer.

Dizzy from lack of blood, she didn't even notice when she collapsed. Exhausted and on the verge of death, she closed her eyes and slept.

* * *

_She was a child again, watching her mother and father chop firewood. They would need it to warm the hut once winter set in. She sat on a stump, swinging her legs in time to the thud of the axe and stretching so her feet could touch the ground._

_It all happened very fast._

_It started with a growl. And then the steady metronome of the axe was gone. She looked up just in time to see a black shadow swallow her father, knocking him to the ground. Her mother screamed._

_The shadow stood and the girl saw that it was a balvarine, young but strong._

_Her mother was still screaming – screaming at the little girl to run away as fast as she could. So she turned and ran, hearing her mother's footsteps close behind. But her little legs were too short to carry her quickly. Her little feet that earlier could barely touch the ground were now sinking into it, slowing her progress._

_After a while, she noticed that her mother's footsteps were missing. Yet another sound that would disappear from her life forever._

"_Mommy?" She looked around, but all she could see were trees. She listened, but all she could hear was her own loud breathing and her tiny heart, beating like a hammer against her eardrums._

"_Mommy?" She called again. Again, no answer._

_Something shiny caught her eye and she realized it was an axe. Short and slightly unbalanced but still dangerous in the right hands. Her mother must have dropped it. The girl picked it up, feeling the grain of the wood against her palm. Like it belonged there._

_The balvarine landed right in front of her, so close she could smell its foul breath and see the saliva dripping from its yellowish teeth._

_She backed away and it followed her, grinning grotesquely. It was playing with its food._

_Her heel touched a root. Her back pressed up against the trunk of a tree. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Cornered._

_The girl's hands began to shake. She gripped the axe tighter to steady them._

_The balvarine tilted its head. Bored of its game, it opened its jaw wide and lunged in for the kill – _

_One moment, she was holding the axe. The next, it was lodged in the beast's skull. She looked around in disbelief, thinking it was someone else's work. Maybe her parents would step out from the shadows. But of course she was being silly; it was only her. She just couldn't really remember because she hadn't thought about it at all; she just acted. She should've realized it earlier._

_The child touched her cheeks and was surprised to find them wet with tears. Of course, that must have been her too._

_She looked down at her robes and found that they were stained red. Scarlet. Scarlet Robe. That would be her name now. She wiped away her tears because Scarlet Robe didn't cry. That was another little girl. A weak little girl, who couldn't do anything for her family except mourn them._

_But Scarlet Robe wasn't weak. And she would do better than mourn them._

_She would avenge them._

* * *

Scarlet was dreaming. In her dream, she saw a white linen curtain ruffle and settle in the wind like ripples in water, fluttering peacefully as she watched. Then the breeze died down and the sheet hung flat. Unmoving.

Disappointed, she tried to go over to it and make it move. But her body didn't respond. A tingling sensation started in her toes and spread upwards until her entire body felt like it was being pricked by tiny thorns.

The tingling turned into burning. And the burning turned into sheer agony.

Scarlet screamed and the sound seemed alien to her. How could so much pain be described in such meaningless noise? She writhed and shook as though seizures wracked her body.

"Shhh... everything is alright. You're safe."

Arms wrapped around her body, pulling her into a gentle embrace. The voice spoke softly from behind in words she couldn't understand through the haze of pain. But the tone itself was soft and soothing and she used it to dull the throbbing in her mind.

Something tickled her lips, trying to force its way into her mouth. On instinct, she cried out and struggled violently, but the grip that comforted her now turned to unyielding stone.

"Eat it," the voice urged. "It will help you sleep."

She snapped it up eagerly, nearly biting off the fingers that fed it to her. The taste was bitter and leafy but she held it down. Juice trickled uncomfortably down her throat and she gagged.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Her eyelids felt heavy and the light seemed less bright – less harsh somehow. Her thrashing subsided to tiny shivers and her screams tuned into whimpers. Her breaths slowed and deepened.

The voice began to hum softly. The song had no words, but she thought she recognized it as something her parents used to sing her. A lullaby. The melody was warm and comforting, like memories of early childhood.

"Sleep," the voice whispered.

As if on command, her clenched muscles relaxed. Her whimpers fell silent. The last vestiges of her consciousness began to drift away. She did as she was told and

Slept.

* * *

Scarlet's sense of time faded and blended together until she could no longer distinguish asleep from awake. Thoughts from dreams or memories.

Sometimes she would wake up feverishly hot and coated in sweat. Her blood would boil in her veins and she would throw off her blankets as if they were poisonous.

Other times she would wake up cold, as though she were bathed in ice water. No matter how tightly she wrapped the blankets around herself, her teeth would chatter and her body would shiver without pause.

Sometimes she would wake up in the pitch black of night, scared and confused. Shadows would creep off the walls, ready to engulf her. Strangle her. Suffocate her. And she would scream in terror, trapped in the hell of her own imagination.

And once in a while, she would wake up and cry for no reason at all.

But her guardian kept her safe.

When she was hot, he came to her with a towel and a tub of cool water, sponging away her sweat and soothing her skin. When she was cold, he came with extra blankets, swaddling her like an infant and tucking her in gently. When she was frightened, he lit extra candles to keep the shadows at bay and formed a circle of protection with his arms. And when she cried, he would hold her against his chest, rocking her and humming in his low voice until she could hear the lullaby in her sleep.

* * *

She awoke.

She was lying on a straw mat, staring up at a wooden ceiling. The smell of herbs and wood drifted in on fresh air. A light breeze lifted her hair to tickle her face.

Judging from the light coming through the window, it was some time in the afternoon. The room was sparse; aside from the simple straw mat she was sitting on, there was only a clothes cupboard, a pile of spare blankets in one corner and some burnt out, stubby candles in another.

How had she gotten here? She tried to piece together the bits of the few memories she had since collapsing in the woods, but nothing came to mind except her fever-driven, delirious dreams. Or were her dreams real? Was this real?

The hero sat up and her body responded with a sharp, stabbing pain. Her hands drifted to her right leg and her side, where the pain was the worst. Someone had cleaned and neatly dressed her wounds. She touched them gingerly, the bandages a stark white against her skin.

Plain cotton shirt and pants were folded in a pile beside her mat. The shirt hung as loosely from her shoulders as the pants on her hips, which had to be held up with a belt. Men's clothes.

Wandering barefoot, she found the rest of the hut – a kitchen and a small sitting room – to be just as humble and simply furnished as the room she had been sleeping in. Whoever lived here clearly wasn't home.

A plan to get back to Knothole Glade was already forming in her mind. She had no idea where in Witchwood she was, but she would have to find a village for directions; it couldn't be hard when the forest was littered with them.

She stopped in the kitchen. It could be days before Scarlet would find her way back to civilization and – injured as she was – she would need to keep her energy up. She took a spare shirt from the bedroom cupboard and wrapped up half a loaf of bread and a handful of dried fruit. She felt guilty for stealing from the man who had saved her life, but she needed to leave as soon as possible. If she had any gold she would've left it behind, but she would have to settle for repaying him in the future somehow. Maybe she could leave a note to explain...

"Leaving so soon?"

The bundle dropped from her hands with an audible thud.

A man stood watching her in the doorway. His bright eyes (the same shade as his russet-coloured curls) held a spark of warmth and his square jaw the beginnings of a beard. Tanned skin and muscled arms spoke of long, sweaty hours in the sun.

"I won't hurt you," he said softly. Scarlet realized that she had unconsciously sunk into a defensive stance. In the same moment, she realized guiltily that she had tried to steal from and fight her host, who had been nothing but kind.

Relaxing out of her pose, she stammered, "I – I'm sorry."

There was no real explanation she could give that he would understand. The truth was that the hero had spent the majority of her life depending on herself and only herself. Even someone with the best intentions could unintentionally get you killed. It wasn't hard to transition from depending on no one to trusting no one; she hadn't even noticed it until now.

The man's response was to pick up the bundle of food, neatly knot it at the top and hand it back to her. "I would've given you it if you had asked."

Now all she could think about was her own stupidity and paranoia. Of course he would've given it to her. What else could he do? Send her away with nothing? He was no Arena shopkeeper.

"I'm so sorry. I just need to get to Knothole Glade as soon as possible and there was no one in here. I just thought that..."

He smiled and extended a hand. "It's alright. I'm Brom, by the way."

She smiled tentatively back as she shook it. "Scarlet..."

She considered adding the "Robe," but decided against it. Obviously, this man didn't recognize her and the hero preferred to keep it that way. For once, she wanted to be looked at like a person and not looked up to. It wasn't a role she wanted to play, not here.

"So your name matches your robes. I'm sorry I couldn't save them – the blood wasn't washing out very well and there were too many rips to repair. I threw them out."

"They were very old anyway."

"You can keep those," he said, nodding at her clothes. "I have about a half dozen more outfits just like it."

"Thanks." She blushed as she suddenly realized that this man had seen Albion's finest Hero cry like a child, scream like a madwoman, beg to be killed...seen her with no clothes on. "Thank you for saving my life too. I'm feeling a lot better than I expected to."

"Good to hear. You had me worried the first few days. There was a lot of blood and your pulse was very weak when I found you. You're either very tough or very lucky to be alive at all."

"A little of both."

"Are you really leaving now?" His tone was disappointed. Sad.

_Yes_, she was about to say, but that wasn't what came out of her mouth. "A lot of things still hurt. I guess I should stay and rest, at least for another night."

Scarlet couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to make someone happy – or sad for that matter – and cared about it.

* * *

At first, the calm of the forest made her restless. Scarlet was a woman of action; there had always been a purpose behind every step she took, every swing of her axe, every breath in her lungs. Now there was nothing to do and nothing she could do about it.

During the day, she'd spend hours wandering through the forest alone while Brom did his chores. He taught her how to recognize plants and mushrooms, showing her which ones were edible, which were medicinal and which were poison. Sometimes she'd bring something new that she'd found back to the hut and watch his eyes light up and reward her with a small smile. It didn't compare to slicing up a dozen balvarines before dinner, but at least it made her feel useful.

At night, when she couldn't sleep, she would watch Brom the next mat over, envious of how peaceful his face looked in the moonlight. Sometimes the corners of his lips would tighten as if he was smiling in his sleep and she would wonder at what he was dreaming.

She told him that she was an orphan, raised by an old couple in town after her mother and father died of a balvarine attack. That much was true. She told him everything about her life, except the fact that she was a Hero. Instead, she pretended that she worked in a shop: a job she hadn't held since she was a youth, before she left for the Guild.

As she adjusted to her new life, Scarlet began to appreciate the peacefulness she'd spent the first week disdaining. She found that rivers had voices and trees could dance. She found that the forest had its own unique undercurrent of life and activity, even if it was slower and more subtle than any town. All one had to do was be silent and listen to hear its secrets. And when she looked into Brom's eyes, she knew how he could live in a cabin in the woods all by himself and was grateful that he had showed it to her.

After a few weeks, her wounds were fully healed.

When she woke up, she complained of stiffness in her knee that didn't loosen up until late in the evening. The next day, there was a fierce storm that kept both of them huddled near the fireplace. The day after that, she found a rare kind of mushroom on her morning walk that she insisted on having for dinner.

Each time she found a reason to stay, Brom would give her one of his slightly amused, enigmatic smiles as if he could see straight through her words to her heart.

But she knew she had to leave eventually. That day, the sky was a rare blue with barely a cloud to be seen. The forest showed off its brightest colours and the birds sang as sweetly as the smell on the air. A more beautiful day she had never known.

Scarlet took a deep breath. "I guess I'll be going now."

"Goodbye." If she could trust herself to know him, there was a touch of sadness in his voice. A touch of sadness in his eyes.

"Goodbye."

She lifted her bag onto her shoulder and checked the map Brom had given her a final time.

"Scarlet?"

"Yes?" She silently hoped that he would ask her not to leave so she would have a reason to stay. To say that she was welcome to live here for as long as she was happy.

The two stood facing each other in a long, silent moment.

"Take care."

"You too."

She left then, knowing that if she looked back she would lose all resolve.

* * *

Scarlet Robe stood in the clearing of the Arena entrance, wondering if she should go in.

She'd fallen back into her old pattern. In fact, it had become even more of an obsession than it used to be. She had spent the better part of her waking hours there for the past week and the crowds rewarded her with enthusiastic praise and applause. She played the part, bowing and signing autographs. Posing for a statue that would be erected in the main square of Knothole Glade.

But though her heart still trembled at the roar of the onlookers, it no longer sang to their tune. She willed herself to feel the rush as life was cut down and forget all else, but she could no longer live freely in a moment when someone or something else died. What used to be a sweet escape was now only a source of disappointment.

The doors of the Arena swung open and someone stumbled out. At a glance, it looked as if he was drunk, but as he got closer she saw him favouring an arm. She saw the stream of blood flowing out of his mouth.

She stepped in his way and he stopped, nearly crashing into her. "What do you want?" He demanded harshly. His eyes were unseeing and the light in them was growing dim.

Scarlet grabbed his hand and the Hero struggled, trying to wrench it out of her grasp but too weak to do anything more than try. Wordlessly, she pressed a health potion into his palm.

He stared at her, disbelieving, confused and wary. She thought it was a pity, that kindness was so hard to find in this world that people didn't expect any.

"I don't need or want your pity," he snarled. But despite his words, Scarlet saw his hand tighten around the potion.

"You're welcome."

And then she left him standing there. She hoped he would live. His frantic breathing slowly faded as she walked the lonely road back to Knothole Glade, knowing that the Arena wasn't where she really wanted to be.

The door closed with a small click and Scarlet was faced with her empty, cold and dark house. She lit a lamp on a table and collapsed into an armchair, too tired and aching to do anything else. Shadows flickered and leapt, dancing to the rhythm of raindrops on the roof. As she listened, she traced the embroidered patterns of the armrest with her finger.

The chair was expensive. The hero had seen to it that it was brought in from Bowerstone, all the way from the mainland. As luxurious as it was, it was a small comfort – just as the Arena had now become.

Shadows cast by the lamplight flickered and danced, lending its ghostly light to the Arena Seal of Champions that hung on the wall. Scarlet stared and it stared back. Little more than a month ago, she would've given anything for it. Now just the sight of it made her miserable.

And she refused to look at it anymore.

* * *

"_Scarlet?_" Brom's asked incredulously as he opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?" She asked impatiently. As she spoke, a flash of lightning illuminated her shivering frame and rain-soaked robes. Thunder echoed among the trees, scaring a flock of birds from their roosts.

The woodsman stepped aside as Scarlet pushed through the doorway. She stripped off the outer layer of her clothes and threw a bag onto the small kitchen table that landed with a thud. Brom wrapped a towel around her shoulders and placed a kettle on the stove.

"Are you alright?" He asked as soon as she was seated and had a steaming mug in her hands.

"I'm fine."

He sat across the table and waited for her to talk, but she merely sipped at her tea. "It's in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm. Why are you here?"

She was here because her mind constantly travelled the many miles to the clearing in the forest with the romantic cottage that seemed like a fairy tale. When she lay down to sleep, she didn't feel safe without its sturdy walls around her or warm without its crackling fireplace. A soft mattress did not feel as comfortable against her back as a straw mattress. Sometimes she thought she smelled the fresh herbs that surrounded Brom's hut, only to find that it was the ravings of her own, homesick mind – for that was what his house was to her: home.

But she didn't tell him that.

Instead she nodded, tight-lipped, at the bag on the table. "Open it."

He only stared at her, stunned and confused.

"Open it," she repeated insistently.

"What is it?" Brom reached a hand into the depths of the rough, burlap sack, his fingers probing whatever was inside.

He took it out and Scarlet heard him inhale sharply, the same gasp of wonder that had escaped her own lips when she first saw it.

It was the Arena Seal of Champions. A circle of pure gold decorated with a ruby and two crossed swords that was as brilliant in the firelight as when she had first gotten it. It was like looking at a feat of architecture or a beautiful painting: she hadn't known men could make such things. Engraved at the bottom was her name. She was the first female champion to ever conquer the Arena. She kept it polished and clean because it used to be what she cared for most in the world. Yes, she had been conceited. That much was obvious to her now.

"My name is Scarlet Robe. If you haven't heard of me, I'm a Hero of the Guild and Champion of the Arena," she said these words miserably, as if she wished they weren't true. How humans always longed for things they didn't have. "I am one of the richest, most powerful people in Albion and I want to repay you properly for saving my life. Name whatever you want and I will give it to you."

"Scarlet...Robe," he said slowly after a pause. "It's very kind of you to offer, but I can't accept it."

"No." The Hero had expected this. But she refused to take it for an answer. "Tell me what it is that you want."

They stared at each other for a long moment, each refusing to back down. The thunder and lightning stopped. The storm died down to rain.

"I can't," Brom sighed, placing the Arena Seal on the table between them.

It was the perfect picture really: them sitting at opposite ends of the table as if the table were the entire world with the Arena Seal symbolizing everything that prevented them from ever meeting. Scarlet lived in wealth and excess while Brom lived in hard work and modesty.

"Please," she whispered. It was the closest she'd ever come to begging. "Let me give you something back. Just do this for me."

Because she wanted to feel like maybe, if she could grant one simple farmer a wish, it could atone for all those years of blood and sand and dust...

"Anything?"

"Anything."

He looked down at the Seal. And when he met her eyes again, she saw a passion that she'd never seen in his gaze before and knew that what he wanted wouldn't just be something trivial to appease her. That it was a sincere wish from his heart.

Brom reached his hand across the table – across the Arena Seal – and rested his fingers lightly on hers. "I want you."

She froze.

"I recognized who you were the moment I saw you in the woods. I'd heard all the stories, but when I saw you, I didn't know what to believe. They talked about you as if you were some mythical being, but you looked human to me so I treated you like one. You were beautiful, even under all that blood. I worried about you when you were sick and fell in love with you when you were healthy. The time you spent with me was happier than I thought I could be. It was like I'd been missing something my whole life and never known until you showed me. Like I was waiting for you. And after you left, I missed you. I couldn't sleep without hearing you breathing next to me. I couldn't laugh without hearing yours. I sat by the window and watched for you, waiting again.

"I know we live different lives. I thought of saving up for a gift, but I knew that it would take me a lifetime to scrounge up enough to buy you what you could in a heartbeat. I thought of carving you a wood sculpture, but there are better artisans than me who could carve you one in half the time with double the skill. I don't have anything to offer you except my love. And if you want us to stay that way, I understand."

He watched her expectantly.

In that moment, she realized that it was never the small clearing in the woods that she had missed. It was Brom all along. He always was – and always would be – her home. Wherever he was, she would gladly stay. He showed her the meaning of being human, but at the same time made her feel like more than she was. Without him, she was lost in a world of people who never looked beyond the gold, the fame or the scarlet robe. A world of people who neither knew or understood her the way only one man could. And she realized that the only thing he could offer her was the only thing she really wanted.

"Brom, you fool," she said quietly. "I don't love you because I need you." His face fell.

She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I need you because I love you."


End file.
